The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [133]
McVey looked back to Osborn. “What is it, Doctor, you feel uncomfortable talking here? Want to go somewhere else?”
Osborn didn’t know what to do or think. McVey was asking him the same kind of questions he had the first time they’d met. He was obviously looking for something he thought Osborn was involved in, but he had no idea what it was. And that made it all the harder because every answer he gave seemed to be calculated avoidance, when, in fact, he was only telling the truth.
“McVey, believe me when I tell you I have no idea what you’re talking about. If I did maybe I could help, but don’t.”
McVey tugged at an ear and looked off. Then he looked back. “Maybe we should try a little different approach,” he said, pausing. “How come you pumped Albert Merriman full of succ—een—ill—choline? I pronounce it ‘ right?”
Osborn didn’t panic, his pulse didn’t even jump. McVey was too intelligent not to have found out, and he’d prepared himself for it. “Do the Paris police know?”
“Please answer the question.”
“Albert Merriman—murdered my father.”
“Your father?” That surprised McVey. It was something he should have considered, but hadn’t, that Merriman had been an object of pursuit for revenge.
“Yes.”
“You hire the tall man to kill him?”
“No. He just showed up.”
“How long ago did Merriman kill your father?”
“When I was ten.”
“Ten?”
“In Boston. On the street. I was there. I saw it happen. I never forgot his face. And I never saw him again, until a week ago, here in Paris.”
In an instant McVey fit the pieces together. “You didn’t tell the Paris police because you weren’t finished with him. You hired Packard to find him. And when he did, you looked for a spot to do it and found the riverbank. Give him a shot or two of the drug. Get him in the water, he can’t breathe or use his muscles, he floats off and drowns. Current is heavy there, the chemical dissipates quickly in the body and he’s so bloated nobody thinks to look for puncture wounds. That was the idea.”
“In a way.”
“What way?”
“First, I wanted to find out why he had done what he did.”
“Did you?” Suddenly McVey’s eyes tracked off. The man in the leather jacket was no longer at the table where he had been. He was closer. Two tables away in a clear line to Osborn’s immediate left. A cigarette was still in his left hand but his right was out of sight, under the table.
Osborn started to turn to see what McVey was looking at when suddenly McVey was on his feet, stepping between Osborn and the man at the table.
“Get up and walk ahead of me. Out that door. Don’t ask why. Just do it.”
Osborn got up. As he did, he realized who McVey had been looking at. “McVey, that’s him. The tall man!”
McVey whirled. Bernhard Oven was standing, the silenced Czechoslovakian Cz coming up in his hand. Somebody screamed.
Suddenly the air was shattered by two booming reports, one right on top of the other, followed almost immediately by a hailstorm breaking of glass.
Bernhard Oven didn’t quite understand why the older American had hit him so hard in the chest. Or why he felt he had to do it twice. Then he realized he was flat on his back on the cement sidewalk outside, while his legs were still inside the restaurant, dangling across the sill of the window he had crashed through. Glass was everywhere. Then he heard people screaming, but he had no idea why. Puzzled, he looked up and saw the same American standing over him. A blue-steel .38 Smith & Wesson revolver was in his fist, its barrel pointed at his heart. Vaguely he shook his head. Then everything faded.
Osborn moved in and felt Oven’s carotid artery. Around them was pandemonium. People were yelling. Screaming Crying out in shock and horror. Some stood back watching. Others were shoving their way out, trying to get away, while still others moved closer, trying to see. Finally Osborn looked up to McVey.
“He’s dead.”
“You’re sure it’s the tall man.”
“Yes.”
McVey had two instantaneous thoughts. The first was that a